Narail Awami League (AL) leaders will cordially accept Sheikh Hasina's candidacy again from Narail-1 constituency (five unions of Narail Sadar and Kalia upazila) in the upcoming general election but will not accept any other alliance candidate.
Front ranking leaders of local AL are holding meetings at different levels in a bid to resist any alliance candidate other than Hasina.
Kalia upazila AL made the demand at a meeting held yesterday at its office. With Upazila AL secretary Kabirul Islam Mukti in the chair, speakers vowed to resist any alliance candidate other than Hasina, party sources said.
They said Narail-1 constituency is a stronghold of AL and the party chief Sheikh Hasina won the seat in of 2001 the election by defeating BNP candidate Dhirendronath Saha by about 17,000 votes.
Earlier, Dhirendronath was elected from the constituency twice-- in 1991 and 1996as an AL candidate.
He (Dhirendronath) quit the party and joined BNP when Shiekh Hasina decided to be an alliance candidate from there in 2001 polls and lost to her.
“If our beloved leader Sheikh Hasina contests from the seat, it will be a blessings for us”, Narail district AL president advocate Suvas Bose told The Daily Star yesterday.
Echoing the same sentiment, party secretary advocate Mohammad Ali said, “The then AL leader Sharif Khasruzzaman who won Narail-2 constituency twice in 1991 and 1996 instantly joined BNP when Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) central leader Mufti Shahidul Islam was nominated as the grand alliance candidate in the planned election of January 22, 2007 which was postponed later”.
Khasruzzaman however secured nomination from 4-party alliance.
Mayor of Kalia municipality and general secretary of Kalia upazila AL Kabirul Islam Mukti said “We are not only demanding nomination of our party candidate in the constituency, we have already started holding meetings and mobilising support at grass roots level to resist alliance candidate other than that of Awami League, if nominated”.
JSD central vice-president Sharif Nurul Ambia and Workers Party central secretary Bimol Biswas are in the field now, local political leaders said. They are also seeking nomination from 14-party alliance.
When contacted over cell phone, Bimol Biswas said, “I shall seek nomination as a 14-party alliance candidate through my party to contest the upcoming election”.